Catalog Search Results
Language
English
Description
Roald Dahl is the one of the most successful children's authors of all time. His words weave magical worlds and his characters continue to charm and terrify new generations. Comedian and best-selling author David Walliams delves into Dahl's world, along the way meeting those who knew him best. He travels to Cardiff, where Dahl was raised on Norwegian fairy tales and experienced school trauma that later informed his books; visits Dahl's Buckinghamshire...
Language
English
Description
In Queen Victoria's day, this is the one they expurgated from the complete Canterbury Tales; fortunately, the modern sensibility responds with the intended laughter at the most notoriously misdirected kiss in European literature. Here the tale is told as Chaucer might have told it-in Middle English (with modern English subtitles) and appropriate costume, to an audience of contemporaries who shared Chaucer's own astonishing combination of grossness...
3) Jane Eyre
Language
English
Description
Journalist and novelist Bidisha was fascinated by Bronte's Jane Eyre as a teenager, but re-reading the story as an adult left her feeling uncomfortable. What Bronte had to say about sex and race was darker and more disturbing than she remembered. Revisiting this classic Victorian novel, Bidisha sees her role model, and the society which spawned her, through very different eyes. Is Jane Eyre really the spirited, independent woman Bidisha admired as...
Language
English
Description
Imagine having written 38 plays...being an actor who became the most popular playwright of his time...and who's legacy was to become the most enduring playwright of all time. Imagine writing something some 400 years ago, and having us stand here in a theater today still exploring, enjoying, and marveling at those golden words? Join our troupe of actors in various stages of rehearsal, presenting some of the bard's most poignant speeches that have...
Language
English
Description
This program from the Famous Authors series offers an overview of Robert Burns' life and major works, including occasional poems, reflective poems, dramatic poems, and lyrics. Beginning with a reading of "To a Mouse," the video introduces Burns parents, William and Agnes Burns, who, though poor farmers, supported the writer's education and surrounded him with Scottish folk songs. As he grew older, Burns rebelled against traditional Scottish values...
Language
English
Description
Camelot's court was home to lords and ladies, knights and sorcerers. The mythic tales of King Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere inspired stories, books, movies, and a Broadway classic. In this episode of Ancient Mysteries, historians and archaeologists lead us throughout England and Wales in search of Camelot and the truth behind one of the Western World's most beloved legends.
Language
English
Description
The richly embroidered story of King Arthur as set down by Sir Thomas Malory during the Middle Ages has unfailingly intrigued generations of readers. P. J. C. Field, one of the world's top authorities on Malory and president of the British branch of the International Arthurian Society; Helen Cooper, editor of the Oxford World's Classics edition of Le Morte Darthur; and medievalist Kevin J. Harty, of La Salle University, begin this survey by assessing...
Language
English
Description
Like Malory's Le Morte Darthur, the anonymously authored Sir Gawain and the Green Knight represents a watershed in the development of the Arthurian tradition. Drawing on insights from Nicholas Perkins, a specialist on medieval English literature and manuscripts at the University of Cambridge; Arthurian expert Kevin J. Harty, of La Salle University; and Helen Cooper, authority on medieval literature at the University of Oxford, this program explicates...
Language
English
Description
Beowulf is the oldest written epic in English literature. In this program, Dr. Robert DiNapoli-teaching fellow in Old and Middle English at the University of Birmingham, England-and Professor John Burrow of Bristol University examine the symbolism and the influence of Christianity in Beowulf and other masterpieces of English and Germanic poetry. The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Dream of the Rood, and The Battle of Maldon are also analyzed. The program...
Language
English
Description
This program from the Famous Authors series offers an overview of the biography and works of Thomas Hardy. The film introduces the writer's hometown of Dorchester, which was a strong part of his identity and the model for the fictional land of Wessex where most of his stories were set. Insights into his lower class upbringing, waning religious conviction, and the major relationships in his life, with his mother Jemima and his wife Emma, cultivate...
Language
English
Description
This beautifully dramatized version of the late-14th-century poem offers a bonanza to the English teacher: one of the best known of the Arthurian legends, a portrait of life in Arthurian days as the Pearl poet imagined it, a baker's dozen of discussion topics about human virtue and human imperfectability-and a fascinating plot involving a challenge by the Green Knight (green is of course the color of magic), who departs Arthur's castle holding his...
Language
English
Description
A scholarly program that reaches out to students of The Canterbury Tales to relate its characters and themes to everyday life in late-14th-century England. Period art of exceptional richness is combined with location photography that retraces the April pilgrimage to Archbishop Becket's shrine at Canterbury; excerpts are read from various tales; and the famous beginning is heard in Middle English. Written by Velma B. Richmond, produced by the University...
Language
English
Description
Writing in the late 1200s, the Spanish nobleman Ramon Lull listed various duties which no knight could ignore. They included fidelity to the monarch, defense of the Christian faith-and, only slightly lower on the list, maintaining order among the tenants on one's estate. This program examines the means by which such political "ideals" were implemented and enforced during the Middle Ages. Spelling out the similarities between serfdom and slavery, the...
Language
English
Description
Written around 1400 in Middle English by an unknown hand, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a mysterious poem about an uncanny event that takes place in the legendary realm of King Arthur. In this program, renowned Gawain translator Simon Armitage seeks a richer understanding of the poem by walking the fading trail that ends at the Green Chapel, the climax point of the famously alliterative epic that is equal parts adventure story, supernatural tale,...
Language
English
Description
This enchanting program revives the drama and pageantry of the medieval mystery play as performed by the venerable guilds of York, England. Perched atop pageant wagons in the streets of their home city, guild members and townspeople in period costumes enact scenes from eleven plays of the Corpus Christi Cycle: Creation to the Fifth Day, The Creation of Adam and Eve, The Fall of Adam and Eve, The Flight into Egypt, The Temptation, The Agony in the...
Language
English
Description
This production is part of the historic 1998 staging of the Corpus Christi Cycle in York, England, and captures the majesty and color of the original 14th- to 16th-century plays. Sponsored by the Company of Butchers, performed on a story wagon on the streets of York amidst an enraptured crowd, and using medieval materials and techniques, the performance strives for authenticity. The affecting play portrays the impact of the crucifixion on several...
Language
English
Description
Cultivating an appreciation of the English classics requires studying the mother tongue as it was originally spoken. In this program, Dr. Joseph Gallagher brings language to life by reciting examples of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English in their original dialects. In addition, he discusses the evolution of English syntax and morphology. A dramatization of a portion of Beowulf is also included, along with visits to historic literary sites important...
Language
English
Description
In this introduction to George Orwell's life and work from the Famous Authors series, viewers follow Orwell through his privileged education, during which he nurtured his writing talents from an early age. He joined the Burmese military police but grew disillusioned with his role as an oppressor, returned to depression-era England, and committed himself to writing, notwithstanding stints in war. The film connects the politically and economically unstable...
19) Ancient Bibles
Language
English
Description
The Codex Sinaiticus is the world's oldest surviving bible. Made around 350 AD, it is a unique insight into early Christians and their effort to find a single version of the biblical text that everyone could accept. Approximately 800 years later, an illuminated bible rich in gold and lapis lazuli and produced in Winchester, recalls a time when bibles were at the center of the Church's struggle with the State for ultimate authority. Both of these bibles...
Language
English
Description
This overview of George Bernard Shaw's life and work from the Famous Authors series starts in Dublin, introducing Shaw's family and his mother's voice teacher and influential family friend, George Vandeleur Lee. The film discusses Shaw's experience as a Protestant in Ireland. Eventually Shaw moved to England, where his mother had started giving singing lessons, and set off writing. There he made a name for himself as a controversial socialist spokesperson,...